It is known that disorders of the circulation of the foot are, on the one hand, widespread and have a significant influence on the return circulation even when no clinical and evident symptoms of the disorders of the circulation exist. Repercussions on the circulation are of too great an importance, metabolic disorders and-in women-the menstrual cycle and the pregnancy. On the other hand, it has to be stated that such, in the beginning, minor anomalies in the circulation of the foot, in the majority of cases, do not receive any treatment. The reason for this, on the one hand, is to be found in the circumstance that, in the initial phase of the illness, which can already be traced in young patients, such anomalies are not detected. A further reason has to be seen in that conventional devices for the correction of these anomalies do not meet the requirements of the patients and, for that reason, do not find acceptance. This applies e.g. to leg dressings which are especially unpopular with young people for the reason alone that, even in the form of a light or medium fixed bandage, they are more or less bulky and thus unsightly and therefore impose severe restriction more particularly upon the fashion-conscious patient with regard to the choice of clothing.
Also conventional arch supports are only conditionally suitable for the therapy of phlebological illnesses or for providing a bed for feet that are sensitive to loads, as are e.g. defective feet of diabetics, for a great many demands are made on such an arch support.
On the one hand, care has to be taken that the user who, as far as the mobility of his foot is concerned, is already more or less seriously restricted, is capable of stepping effortlessly into the shoe. On the other, the arch support should be constituted in such a way that it is capable of compensating or offsetting the muscular atrophy regularly produced by the impaired venous and/or capillary circulation within the area of the foot or to promote the retrogression of this muscular asthenia. Finally, in arch supports of this kind, a further aspect consists in that, in an economical manufacturing process, as many possibilities as possible exist for accordingly optimally adapting the arch support to the individual marginal conditions, i.e. to the, in each case, existing configuration and illnesses of the foot.
These criteria and objectives pointed out above are, in part, contradictory. A conventional arch support which was capable of being adapted to the in each case existing clinical picture of the foot was equipped with a relatively rigid frame that was intended to first and foremost provide the foot with a sound support. Apart from the fact that such an arch support had to be renewed at short intervals so as to undergo an adaptation to the changing bed or base of the foot, such an arch support is not suited for the therapy of the feet of diabetics which, due to illness, have undergone a change. Diabetic feet commonly have a tendency of developing hammer and claw toes. This has as a result that, when conventional arch supports are used, when the foot is inserted, it rolls itself into the shoe whereby extremely unfavorable stress situations arise which are very painful. More particularly, in this conventional arch support, no allowance is made for the, in the diabetic foot, frequently very marked muscular atrophy within the zone of the metacarpal phalangeal joints, with the aid of which the rolling load is absorbed when walking. That is why the invention is based upon the technical problem of providing a therapeutic arch support, more particularly for therapy in cases where disorders of the foot circulation are involved, for treatment of the venous insufficiency within the region of the leg and for providing a bed so to speak for feet that are sensitive to load and stress, such as e.g. the foot of a diabetic, which not only possesses an excellent therapeutic effect for the scopes of application stated in the foregoing, but, over and above that, is constructed in such a way that, white being economic to manufacture, is accepted by a wide section of patients. This technical problem is solved by the arch support.